Dave Grohl: 'Gangnam Style Is One Of My Favorite Songs'

Dave Grohl has admitted that "Gangnam Style" by Psy is one of his favorite songs from the past decade.
He made the concession during a 50-minute keynote speech at SXSW in Texas yesterday, where he discussed his musical career and inspirations.
"I can truthfully say out loud that 'Gangnam Style' is one of my favoutite songs of the past decade," he told a packed-out audience.
Grohl also told the crowd that "Foo Fighters is the stupidest f--king name" and that Kurt Cobain once told industry figures that Nirvana wanted to be the biggest band in the world. "I laughed, I thought he was f--king kidding," said Grohl. "How Kurt even thought we could make a ripple in this mainstream world of polished pop music was beyond me."
Discussing the Sound City studio where many renown acts including Nirvana recorded classic albums, Grohl said their recording session there was "the sound of three people playing like their life depended on it." The label initially pressed only 35,000 copies of "Nevermind", but soon they were selling more than 300,000 per week, which Grohl described as a ripple becoming a tidal wave.
There was an emotional moment when he recalled his reaction to Kurt Cobain's suicide: "When Kurt died I was lost, I was numb. The music I had devoted my life to had now betrayed me. I turned off the radio, I put away my drums."
What do you make of "Gangnam Style", Psy's global YouTube hit? Let us know in the comments if it's as good as Grohl says.

It depends how you define good. Good can mean excellently produced and features incredibly talented musicians, or it can mean a fun song that people enjoy listening to. I personally like the song and think it is a good song. Judging something as good or not is all a matter of perspective.

Dave and Maynard from Tool, two guys who know exactly how to mess with your head
Maynard: Hey Dave should I tell them the Tool album is coming out next week but then put it on hold and pretend I got hurt riding a unicycle?
Dave: That'll be hilarious! I'm going to tell them I like Gangnam Style.

I'm glad he's finally talking about NIRVANA. For a long time he wouldn't. Maybe playing with Jimmy Page, John Paul Jones, Paul McCartney, performing at the white house, etc, made him realize that he's a goddamned badass and he can say whatever the fuk he wants.

I hear ya. I think he finally just found an appropriate platform on which he could communicate the story. With Sound City closing it presented a good opportunity to really dive into the band's beginnings along with all of their influences. Being asked about Kurdt and the band in every interview he's ever done since 1994 probably hasn't catalyzed the process.

Well, I think Grohl said in an interview with Conan that he wanted to name his project something random so that the public would not see that the former Nirvana drummer is going to be doing a project. Foo Fighters was probably the most random name Grohl thought about so that was that.

To be honest, I don't really keep up with what Dave Grohl says. I read the news articles on here, and occasionally Dave has something interesting to say, because he's a decent guy and a good musician. Personally, I don't like the Foo Fighters, but I do like Dave Grohl. So yeah, I had no idea that he's said it before. And as Vendetta... pointed out, why would he pick something he thinks is stupid?

I watched this speech live yesterday and I like how of all the things they could have taken out of context, Gangnam Style was what they came away with... I mean, come on.. that was barely even a passing remark. Shoddy writing in my opinion.

Honestly, I'm pissed off at whoever wrote this article. That speech was one of the most inspiring things I've ever seen as musician, Grohl or otherwise, and THIS is what they ****ing report on. Yeah, they kind of touched on a couple other parts of the speech, but still.
Have some pride, UG.

I'm not the first to say it, but: are you ****ing serious? THIS is what they choose to headline with? Not the fact of how inspiring this speech was for musicians (practically all of my musician friends, even people who don't like Grohl, loved it), but rather a stupid joke he made that could shape the way people think of his opinions. damn it.

I've never really listened to this Gangnam style, but when I heard about it I was actually kind of pleased to hear about it. I mean it's kids music, let's face it, what adults say about it is irrelevant, it's not for us. What I was excited about was that fact that kids were going nuts for foreign music, that children were dancing to Korean pop music, I think it's amazing, an absolutely excellent show of cultural diversity.
Also I quite like the name Foo Fighters I'm quite fascinated with the phenomenon they're named after, I think it's a cool name...

Yup. I respect the dude and all. But he really is the current most overrated musician of all time. He'll play a few Lars-style beats and fills, and strum some chords on his guitar and, "OH MY GOD! That was the most amazing f*cking thing I've ever heard!" statements appear. The dude is a solid player but, he's no super-musician.

I don't think that, that should be the main point of the article. Maybe how he didn't think Nirvana would make it would be more appropriate. Because he could say his favorite artist is Katy Perry, King Diamond, Marina and the Diamonds (love her) or Frank Zappa. It doesn't really matter in the slightest. His opinions are his own and I don't think anyone should really care about his.

If that's what tickles Grohl's pickle than good for him. I however don't really care for "Gangnam Style" by Psy. I'm not saying that it's bad music (because I'm not important enough in this world to make such decisions) but the music that I care for is music that is being created out of thin air with actual musical instruments that required time and dedication to master and perform live in front of an audience, and not something that you create once in a music studio and just push play for every performance after that. That's just me though, to each his own.

Couple years back when I still lived with my parents I was watching a Nirvana special, and my dad looked up from his newspaper and said "that guy's dead already, too, isn't he?"
If my dad (who saw Queen live, so not exactly an alien on planet rock, but still) knows that, then Nirvana has to be the biggest band of all time.
Gangnam style is catchy and clever, and the music mafia can try to copy it as much as they want, they will fail.

Bieber and Psy most likely didn't even write any of their music. Mozart did. Plus. WHY would you put those names in the same sentence with Mozart?
In the far-far future of music, whatever that may be like, Bieber/Psy will continue to be piss ants, if anything, in the history pages of music compared to Mozart.
You're gonna give someone a brain aneurysm with shitty comparisons like that.